A16z backs UK startup Dex to scale ‘AI talent agent’ and recruitment matchmaker

Storied Silicon Valley VC firm Andreessen Horowitz is backing a fledgling U.K. startup that’s setting out to “redefine” how AI is used to match companies with talent.

Dex, as the startup is called, targets candidates and companies with various AI-powered recruitment smarts, including matchmaking and coaching, with a view toward improving retention in the long run.

Dex is the handiwork of CTO Harry Uglow and CEO Paddy Lambros (pictured above), who recently left their positions as software engineer and head of talent, respectively, at European VC firm Atomico. While they say that Dex has already lured some two dozen U.K. tech firms on board (“including two high-profile U.K. unicorns”), the platform is remaining in closed beta for now as they fine-tune things ahead of a broader launch later this year.

Ahead of that, the London-based startup on Tuesday announced it has raised $3.1 million in a pre-seed round of funding led by a16z’s Speedrun fund and Concept Ventures, with participation from a slew of angels from across the tech and VC landscape, including: Meta board member Charlie Songhurst; Deliveroo COO Eric French; Incident.io CEO Stephen Whitworth; Notion Capital partner Kamil Mieczakowski; and ex-Atomico partner Bryce Keane.

Hire ground

With AI becoming increasingly intertwined in the recruitment realm, Dex is entering a busy space — this includes fledgling startups, well-funded unicorns, and new AI smarts baked directly into LinkedIn. However, Dex sees a gap for an all-encompassing platform that’s laser-focused on really getting to know candidates.

In the first instance, Dex — which the company pitches as an “AI voice talent agent” — converses with candidates via a call to garner an understanding of their experience, skills, ambitions, and more. Subsequently, Dex can help them plan their next career move; present them with relevant opportunities; prepare them for interviews; and even negotiate offers they may receive.

It’s worth noting that Dex will work both for passive candidates — i.e. those not actively searching for a new job — and those very much on the hunt. For instance, once Dex has built a profile of the candidate, it can keep tabs on open positions advertised on the web — perhaps very specific kinds of roles at very specific companies — and serve alerts when such opportunities crop up.

For those actively seeking new work, Dex can go the full nine yards, from search through to application.

“Dex talks through what you want — your preferences and needs — and asks questions to deeply understand your experience and skills,” Lambros explained to TechCrunch. “Using this data, Dex then maps the entire market to find the most appropriate opportunities and surfaces them to you. If you want to proceed, Dex handles the application — no more CV, no more cover letter — and when there is a match, introduces you to the hiring manager.”

So for candidates, Dex is less marketplace or job board, and more an AI agent that does all the mundane stuff for them.

“We believe candidates don’t want to trawl through hundreds of generic job advertisements, so Dex does the searching for you, saving you hours of scrolling, researching, and then admin applying,” Lambros said.

After all this, Dex can coach candidates for their interview and even provide market data on things like average compensation for such roles.

Lambros said that in addition to leaning on “large public data sets and thousands of interviews and call transcripts,” Dex spoke to more than 50 of the U.K.’s “most experienced recruitment leaders” to learn about their recruitment methodology, and what they look for in their ideal candidates. And all this data, ultimately, went into Dex.

Under the hood, Dex is built on multiple LLM providers, including OpenAI, Google (Gemini), and Meta (Llama), switching based on whatever improvements are introduced with each respective model.

“We’re constantly evaluating and changing providers to ensure that we are able to benefit from the latest advancements,” Uglow said.

On the company side, meanwhile, Dex converses with recruitment teams to establish their preferences for their ideal candidate.

“Dex speaks with hiring managers and candidates to deeply understand what a great fit looks like,” Uglow said. “The culture, behaviors, wants, needs, and ambitions of individuals and companies. This is then combined with a wide range of publicly available data, powering our recommendation systems to curate personalized matches.”

With $3.1 million in the bank, the company is now ramping up its hiring across engineering and marketing, with a view toward launching publicly starting in the U.K., before looking to international markets.

“Hiring isn’t about filling seats — it’s about creating lasting partnerships that benefit employees and companies,” Lambros said. “With this funding, we’ll help companies retain top talent and empower employees to find work they love.”